Photo by Guerin Blask
(New School, 2007)
(Wolfe Island Records, 2018)
Photo by Timo Lieber
Michael Quattrone (he/him) is the author of the chapbook, Rhinoceroses (New School, 2007), selected for the New School Chapbook Award by Olena Kalytiak Davis. His work is included in the Best American Erotic Poems from 1800 to the Present (Scribner, 2008), the Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel–Second Floor (No Tell Books, 2007), and the Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody, 2013).
Recent poems appear in DMQ Review, Streetlight, and Passengers Journal. You can hear him read “The Kingdom,” in The Night Heron Barks, and watch him recite “Tomorrow,” as part of ArtsWestchester’s Emergence Pop-Up Poetry series, 2021.
Michael’s poetry was first published in 2005, in the “Best New Poets” issue of Octopus Magazine, with an introduction by David Lehman. From 2007 to 2011, Michael curated the KGB Bar’s Monday night poetry series with comrades Laura Cronk and Megin Jiménez. They hosted over one hundred emerging and nationally renowned poets at the legendary East Village venue (with only one bar fight).
In 2011, Michael and communal art-maker Kala Smith founded Hearthfire, a non-profit organization that fosters connection with earth, art, and heart. Michael leads Hearthfire’s musical project, One River.
In 2018, Michael released an album of original songs, One River (Wolfe Island Records, 2018), co-produced with Hugh Christopher Brown. Since then, One River has performed at intentional venues in the US and Canada, including the Kripalu Center for Health and Yoga, Esalen, Urban Zen, and the Hero’s Journey Foundation.
Michael earned a BS from Northwestern University, where he studied theater and literature, and an MFA in creative writing at the New School. He lives in Tarrytown, New York, where he reads poetry for The Westchester Review and serves on the board of the Hudson Valley Writers Center.
Readings
Slapering Hol Press Presents A Celebration of Debut Poetry Collections. Wednesday, December 14, 2022 @ 7:00 PM EST (via Zoom). Readings by Stephen Ackerman, Theresa Burns, Diamond Forde, Myra Malkin and David O’Connell. Hosted by Susanna H. Case, Sally Bliumis-Dunn and Michael Quattrone.
New York City Poetry Festival Saturday, September 10, 2022 @ 11:30 AM, The Algonquin: Rebecca Doverspike, Cindy Beer-Fouhy & Michael Quattrone, hosted by Susana Case for Slapering Hol Press.
Praise
Michael Quattrone’s poems are impressively various. Some younger poets paint themselves into a corner, following one mentor or school without having sampled enough of the field. Quattrone is his own man, and the proof is that his poems embrace such a wide range of impulses, forms, tones, and subjects. He may derive one poem from a newspaper article, another from the elaboration of a trope, a third from the structure of an inventory.
Quattrone is his own man, and the proof is that his poems embrace such a wide range of impulses, forms, tones, and subjects.
He is a poet of “existential paranoia,” but in another mood he is lustily high-spirited, and he can also write unabashedly about the love of a father for his young daughter. The form is suitable to the occasion . . . . And if one poem employs an ironic persona, there is nothing reflexive about the irony, and it will not stop the poet from writing other poems in a quiet truth-telling mode, unafraid of sentiment, wishing he “could explain before it grows too late the shifts / I cannot explain before it’s too, too late. Later / even than I had originally imagined when / it was not yet too late. Before I recognized I / did not know what everything meant.”
— David Lehman, Introduction to eight poems by Michael Quattrone in Octopus Magazine, 2005
Poems
(Scribner, 2008)
(Write Bloody, 2013)
(No Tell Books, 2008)
Photo by Dina Regine
Night Traveler Chautauqua, 20.2 (forthcoming June 2023)
February 25, 2021 Harpur Palate, 22.1 (forthcoming May 2023)
How to Love The Shore, Issue 17
Two Poems Streetlight Magazine, December 30, 2022
Saturday Night New Croton Review, Fall 2022
The Old Orchard The Muleskinner Journal, Issue Three, June 2022
Yes, Ambivalence Passengers Journal, Volume 3, Issue 2, June 2022 (with audio)
About the Type DMQ Review, Spring 2022
Reflection Streetlight, 14 January, 2022
Device Nixes Mate Review, Issue 21/22
Spring Regret The Shore, Issue 12, Winter 2021
Tomorrow The Westchester Review, Summer 2021
Remember My Body Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 2, June 2021 (with audio)
July 15 Pareidolia Literary, 1 May 2021
The Kingdom The Night Heron Barks, Winter 2021 (with audio)
Responses to Tina Chang’s Instagram Post, 12/18/20 Indolent Books, Poems in the Afterglow, 12 January 2021
The Value of Stones Streetlight, 1 January 2021 (Pushcart nominated; reprinted in the Best American Poetry Blog, 13 July 2022).
The First Recital Poets Reading the News, 14 October 2020
The Humble Crafter Best American Poetry Blog, 20 July 2020
Idyll Coldfront, 12 October 2014
Breakers Best American Poetry Blog, 20 April 2011
Wist New York Quarterly, 64, August 2008
Lo Mein Palace, Here I Come Pool, Volume 7, 2008 (Honorable Mention, Best American Poetry Poem Contest)
Conscript Verse Daily, 23 August 2007
Bill No Tell Motel, 14 August 2007
To The Sitter No Tell Motel, 16 August 2007
Suicide Note Composed on a DayGlo® Post-it® Pad No Tell Motel, 17 August 2007
Forecast No Tell Motel, 18 August 2007
Americain Barrow Street, Summer 2007
Commedia Violi a review of Paul Violi’s Overnight, Jacket 33, July 2007 (reprinted by Modern American Poetry, Best American Poetry Blog, Coldfront)
Ticker McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, 10 January 2007
Event Horizon Vera List University Art Collection, June 2006 (Second Prize, creative response to Kara Walker’s installation, Event Horizon, 2005)
Reverie McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, 3 May 2006
Two Poems, Pebble Lake Review, Spring 2006
Two Poems, Caffeine Destiny. Winter 2005
Eight Poems, introduced by David Lehman, Octopus Magazine, “Best New Poets” Issue 6, August 2005
Michael Quattrone 